"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Recently I sat down with Howard T. Mendacio-Ledgerdemain (HTML), an old acquaintance and expert on The Identity Theft Industry. TITI has been flattened by the bad economy, much as anyone else. However, as this interview shows, TITI is actually well-positioned to stage an intervention, offering a lift for the sagging enrollment numbers at Healthcare.gov.

Sissypuss: You guys are criminals! Who would even reach out to you?HTML: Be nice, now. I am merely a humble consultant, workin’ hard, tryin’ to locate and adhere to whatever the law seems to indicate at a given hour. People come to me with questions, and I offer purely hypothetical guidance, you see. People who cruise in orbits very, very close to the Resolute Desk. And who am I to turn them away?S: So you’re talking about a White House advisor?HTML: Could be, could be. But one always strives to maintain an Area Of Uncertainty in these matters, you see? Not unlike the Affordable Care Act itself.S: So how exactly can criminals help the White House?HTML: Must we be so pejorative? These are concerned citizens, just like Congress, who are being tasked to assist taxpayers in doing something for their own good, namely, get insurance.S: Can you be more specific about the verb “assist”?HTML: One of the chief impediments to enrolling, other than a website built by gerbils on Drano, is that the chief audience for ObamaCare–people who can’t spot a bad deal on a ballot or an insurance policy–also aren’t always swift about remembering where they live. And even when they have that information written down, and can read the information, they are not always quite so coordinated about entering it into a gerbil-crafted website. All that texting is bad for data entry. I’m not blaming the victim here. It’s really a complement to how well TITI’s education affiliates have blown up these peoples’ minds.S: Not everyone could manage to sound so enthusiastic about a bad website with bad customers.HTML: I’m a consultant, kitty: I’m a ray of sunshine to all needing their lemons turned into a Limon Collins.S: And so what exactly happens?HTML: Well, you’ve got a website that needs better numbers, you’ve got information about a pool of people, and you’ve got, let’s say, a catalyst. You should be on about a catalyst, no? Let’s say, hypothetically, that a bunch of people who needed insurance just kinda got it, and Healthcare.gov just kinda got the numbers it needs. Everyone’s happy. What’s not to like?S: Hm. The transition from a government legally mandating you get insurance to a situation where you go to the mailbox and discover that, by magic, it’s all been done for you isn’t a large leap.HTML: No, not at all.

Comments

http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

In South Carolina, the people whose job was to ensure the computer records were secure thought locking the building at night was enough, and hackers obtained all the records of those who paid taxes to the state. So the state has paid for ID protection for all those who could have been affected, now going into the second year of protection.

One wonders if the federal government is going to end up having to do the same for those who use the ObamaCare website. It reportedly doesn’t just have insufficient security, but in fact none at all.

LeMonJames

“HTML”.

Heh.

http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

I was listening to Hannity and he had on a bunch of computer consultants discussing healthcare.gov. There cursory looking at the site shows it does not have the normal security features sites such as Amazon have. If Amazon is a 10, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being best; healthcare.gov falls around 1 or 2. That it cost more than $600 million is criminal, given that you could have built that site and all the servers and back end support for less than $50 million (and possibly far less than that).